Christmas OOAKs

I originally started sculpting those two for Collliii competition, but was two late to enter :-) Not that I was upset about it, I actually was quite happy I didn’t enter, because for a whole month I was keeping them as my secret and was enjoying making them their tiny outfits. I miss white Christmas quite a lot, that’s where warm part of their outfits comes from. We had a great time together, and now they are ready to go, to be somebody’s Christmas delight.  I listed them on our local Trademe auction :-)

The little girl is here:  http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing.aspx?id=428139771

And the little wide awake boy is here:

http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing.aspx?id=428372792

My last and first sculpted babies.

I am quite sure that I am back to sculpting. I have a tiny little thing to show off. This little girl is made of Cernit, and dressed in her national clothes as well as in traditional warm baby basics. It was a great pleasure to sculpt using Cernit and I probably won’t go back to Fimo after it. The girl is painted with genesis paints, I tried to create a right skin tone for her young ethnic skin and used quite a bit of paint and texture medium. Doesn’t look too perfect, but I m learning and enjoying it ;-) 

 

 And this lil guy is my old friend who lives with his new family now. He was my first, took me ages to sculpt him but I m very proud with the result.

Can’t wait to show him to you!

This is Richard, he is very serious little boy, shy smile on his face is maximum he can give you really, not much more :-) He’s got gorgeous blonde hair and eyelashes, blue eyes and very fair skin. He also got his first tooth coming through, but you can’t really see it on this picture. He’s a real handsome one, too, out of all dolls in the house my little daughter prefers him. 

A little bit of showing off :-)

I thought I d share this wee one with you, few minutes before he goes of the Trademe auction. He is a real boy, 2,5 inches long curled up, made of Fimo Puppen polymer clay, painted with Genesis, with hair baked into his head. I still have skills and can sculpt another one if you wish ;-) Girl or boy. I m offering because I probably won’t sculpt one like this for sale for a long time, it’s quite hard detailed job. I am more keen to go back to sculpting parts. 

 

 Here is another picture of Nicolas by the way :-) He is still for sale as I only announce his sale on this blog :-)

Nicolas is for sale, affordable reborn

Ever wanted affordable but beautiful reborn? Here he is, selling as I need a room for other reborns on the way and my daughter's toys :-) He will cost you $200 USD + shipping (we live in NZ).Please have a look at my older post where you can get much more information about Nicolas. Thank you very much for looking.

Nicolas!

Please welcome baby Nicolas. He was born today, Sun March 6, his height is 22 “, his weight is 2 kg. He has come a long way from being Secrist Teddy kit to how he looks now :-)  He is a twin brother of Nicolette. And he is looking for new home. Here are few first pictures of him, but more to come.

plangirls.org

Please have a look here plangirls.org

And also here, www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPsxErMPd_Y it’s a video that explains the best what this website is about and why so many things in this world go wrong…

Because I am a Girl

“In the poorest regions of our world, girls face more obstacles to survival and development simply because they are girls. Plan's work in 48 countries worldwide affirms that every girl has a right to survive, develop, and participate, so that she can reach her full pote...ntial in a society that respects her rights and dignity. Educated, healthy, and protected girls are given the powerful possibility of improving the lives of their families, communities and countries. When we invest in girls, we affirm that a bright, prosperous and peaceful future exists for every person on this planet…”

   Please spread the word, post it in your blog, signature, website, like it on the Facebook etc. Let’s help the most beautiful and helpless human creatures fight for themselves. And let’s hope one day girl’s birth will be welcomed in those countries and their men will finally stop being afraid of women enough to accept them as equals…

Sewing, sewing...

I’ve been doing quite a bit of sewing lately - thanks to my 21 month old daughter who was sometimes keen to play by herself on the floor in the sewing room while I was sewing. I am quite proud with what I’ve done and very happy that I finally found a great reborn body pattern and excellent body material, which is everybody’s favourite suede, but the one I used is a heavy duty one. It’s rather hard to sew, but the result is amazing – an absolutely cuddly body that holds its shape perfectly at the same time.  

 

This is Nicolas by the way :-) I will introduce him a bit later. He previously had a cotton Secrist body that I absolutely hated (sorry for being rude). It was long and floppy and my reborn baby was long and floppy, too :-( 

Anyway, here is a pattern. 

You can adjust its size to the size of your baby; blow it up in any picture editor to the size which is your baby kit size in inches + 4 cm. For example if your kit size is 19 inches, then you should blow the image up to 23 cm in height and print it out. Teddy kit makes 22 inches baby so the patter image size has a height of 26 cm. I hope it makes sense :-)

I also made an outfit for Nicolas. I think you can call it a christening gown, although it can also be a simply romper set. I made it of Japanese quality silky satin; both romper and hat also have cotton lining. Pattern is coming up soon, if I manage to find it :-O
 

Another two heads

Why it’s all about bald heads these days? Another two baby heads are on my shelf!! They are arrived, my two boys, Raine and Tray, Bountiful baby thank you! Now they both look just like box full of heads, limbs, eyes and hair, but I m so looking forward to turn it all into two gorgeous boys. I actually wanted to make two little sisters out of Raine and Tray kits, but when I looked at them closely I realised they are 100 % little guys. 

They both are pink, a bit too pink IMO (no wonder peach colour kits are usually sold much faster). But I am actually looking forward to working with pink vinyl; pink is a very natural colour to our skin. It will definitely need a bit of green wash, but otherwise it adds depth to the reborn baby skin texture, with further skin tone layers. I would do an internal purple wash to peach colored vinyl anyway, otherwise it would look too “flat”… So there are no reasons left not to like pink vinyl I guess?  ;-O

I absolutely love Secrist’s translucent vinyl. It looks odd when you look at it first, too bright for baby doll features, but once you have completed internal purple wash, it looks absolutely transformed and ready for blushing.

Two heads, dozen of limbs...

.. that's what I sculpted so far, hoping to make triplets.. the third triplet was going to be a sleeping one, and I already sculpted all limbs.. It was 3 months ago, and since then two heads and dozen of limbs are just standing on a shelf, (in the back room, not to give heard attacks to people who would see them otherwise) :-( I ignore them, doing reborning instead.. Why I do (or DONT do) it? I don't know. But I m very keen to think that I just don't like how they look :-O

I still don't know what to do with them. I m working on another Secrist doll kit at the moment and finding it exciting enought not to go back to baby sculpting for quite a while.

Eyebrows? Easy!

I like painting eyebrows on my reborn babies. I know many artists find eyebrows to be one of the hardest parts of creating a reborn baby and I totally know why. Eyebrows form and finish the look of a face.  It’s important to make them look right for the whole face to look right. Eyebrows also have to look great in promotional pictures.

I was 11 when eyebrows first took my attention, I used to draw them very often.  The first thing I would notice on somebody’s portrait would be eyebrows (in a couple of years it would be noses that I’d notice first ;-)).  So I can tell that not only reborn artists have problems with drawing them correctly.

I absolutely love the Secrist tutorial on how to draw eyebrows, especially the 3D one.  The Genesis thick medium extender does a great job adding texture and volume. (I think for young babies drawing is the only option to create eyebrows, rooted ones look too vicious.)  I will be a bit brave now when I will say that there is one mistake in the Secrist way of drawing eyebrows. On their images the eyebrows look too even. Little brush or pencil strokes go one after another, covering the eyebrow area; they seem to have same colour and same intensity. Real eyebrows never look even.

 

Those are the pictures of toddlers and young children, not baby ones, but they show the shape much clearer. As you can see, most eyebrows start in shadow at the nasal bone, where they are almost invisible and very rare and thin. Then the hair starts thicker, and they form the familiar shape of an eyebrow. Closer to the temples, the eyebrows are surrounded by thick but rare hair that form an arrow shape. Sorry for being too literal.

 

This is my latest Nicolette. Her right eyebrow, to be correct. (Please don’t take the eyelashes close to heart, on this photo they have just been rooted, I didn’t trim and cut them yet.)

 

Round and oval shapes show areas where hair is “almost invisible”, which means they are rare (temple) or very short (nasal bone).

   

I usually start drawing eyebrows from painting the most visible hair, above the inside corner of the eye, doing quite long strokes which go along the eyebrow shape.

 

 Those long strokes get together on the eyebrow.

 

Then I continue painting strokes, adding few little ones on top, closer to the temples.

 

 

 After that I use tiny short strokes to draw the part of the eyebrow closest to the nose.

I suggest practicing on paper first, repeating the eyebrow shape over and over. That’s how I used to do anyway. It will give your hand a good idea about the eyebrow shape. I guarantee you good results with your babies’ eyebrows in a while after repeating this drawing exercise ;-)

Hello baby Nicolette

This is Nicolette...

I am endlesly proud of her and love her to bits :-) She is created from Teddy Secrist kit which I adore. About a month ago I put myself togeter and said to my husbant that I don't need anything else for Christmas exept reborn kit... I don't regret it because now, after a month of work  I have a beautiful baby on my hands :-) Reborning world is beautiful! I wish I knew before how easier it is to work with ready-made soft vinyl kits than with dolls!